So I look into the blinking red light and say, “I made a few mistakes along the way, and I’m trying to put that right.” Turning to Mr. Collins, I ask, “Why did you put the articles in my bag?”

He looks ashamed, nothing like the man he was at school, and glancing at the camera, then the floor, he says, “I knew your mother. We grew up together. We were friends.”

I thought only Dad and Nan had stories about Mom. I never expected an English teacher I hated to have a treasure chest filled with his own.

“She was the first person I spoke to in eighth grade,” he whispers. “She sat next to me in class and smiled the biggest smile, and I wasn’t scared anymore. We were friends from that moment on.” He is silent for a while, then he mumbles, “I’m sorry about the articles. I was trying to help. I realize now that wasn’t the case. What kind of person puts stories about a murdered woman in her daughter’s schoolbag?”

Before, I would have said a terrible person, but listening to him speak about my mother, I’m not so sure now.

“I should have spoken to you,” he says. “But what would I say? I know the kids see me a certain way. I thought it was better to stay anonymous. I wanted to motivate you, to ensure you never forgot what you were fighting for.”

I don’t tell him I could never forget, for a single second, what happened to her.

But thinking back to that first night after Mayfield Lodge, when I came home, convinced I was quitting the show before the article in my suitcase and Sonia’s coup pulled me back, I realize he did help me.

“You made a difference,” I say, and he offers me a relieved smile.

I want him to keep talking long after he’s stopped. I want him to tell me everything he can about Mom, because he was her friend when she was my age. He knows things no one else does.

When he’s gone, Danny sits next to me and says, “So that’s it.”

“I guess.”

“It’s been an honor. I’m proud of you.”

I used to hate it when people said that, but not anymore.

“What are you going to do next?” I ask.

“I don’t know. Something will come up.”

“You were a good director.”

“It was the luck of the draw,” he replies, and I don’t know if he means for me or for him.

Chapter 144

It would be wrong to think Dad had some remarkable transformation that day. In so many ways, he’s still broken, just not as much as before.